


The Stars

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Nightmares, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 05:51:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Thane wakes from a nightmare, and Shepard learns what he really fears.





	The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: "The night the stars fell from the sky"

 

Thane jerked awake, his body moving so fast he caught Jane in the jaw with an elbow. He twisted, motions smooth and without hesitation.

It reminded her of when he’d killed Nassana: All lethal grace.

Of course, he’d faced an enemy then, not the woman he slept beside.

“Thane!”

His hand closed around her throat, but he didn’t jerk, didn’t snap her neck as she’d seen him do to others. His inner eyelids closed, the ridges of his eyebrows lowering and drawing toward one another. “Siha?”

Jane nodded but didn’t dare wrap her fingers around his wrist.

Sometimes it was easy to think of Thane as a sweet man. He spoke gently, voice quiet and careful. He touched her with stokes that reeked of overcaution and never hesitated to offer an ear when someone was upset.

However, he’d earned his reputation as the most feared assassin for a reason. He’d bought that with blood and skill, something she did not tread lightly upon.

His gaze dropped to where he had her pinned before he jerked back. “I’m sorry,” he rushed out as he pulled from the bed. He reached down to gather up the clothing that had fallen before they’d fallen into her bed together. The movements had lost the fluidity he used in attack. Instead, they stilted and sped as if he couldn’t decide on the proper speed for nonchalance.

“Wait.” Jane moved over to the side of the bed where he stood, the danger having passed. She took his wrist to stop his retreat. “Where are you going?”

“To my own quarters. Perhaps it is a good night for some time apart.”

“Why?”

He lifted his free hand, moving it slowly as if he feared her flinch until his fingers brushed her jaw. “The skin is darkening, siha. I hurt you.”

“I’ve gotten worse sparring with Garrus.”

“But we were not sparring. I hurt you, could have done far worse.” He pulled the hand away and shook his head. “Hurting you is something I will not risk.”

Trying to convince Thane of anything always failed. He wasn’t a man who rushed into anything, so when he’d made his mind up, he dug his heels in. Instead, a change of subject sometimes worked. “Were you having a nightmare?”

Thane pulled at the wrist she held but seemed unwilling to yank hard enough to break her hold. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And it was unpleasant.”

Jane sighed and released him. As much as she wished he’d let her in, she wouldn’t force him to. He’d taken the pieces of her past as she’d offered them, one at a time, never pushing. The night he’d waited silently as she’d tried to explain how death felt, how floating in space and choking as your entire life drifted away felt, it reminded her he deserved the same.

Would she ever get it, though?

Would he ever let down that guard? Ever let her in? When she asked about Kolyat, when she asked about Irikah, he’d answer with short sentences. Tiny grains of truth he thought might fill a glass but never did.

His sigh said he read it on her face. The bed shifted as he sat on the edge, his back to her. The stripes that ran over his ribs and down his back made her want to follow them with her fingers, but any touch and he’d bolt.

“Was it about Irikah?”

“No.” He stilled, then shook his head. “Yes. Sort of.”

“If you answer all questions like that we don’t need to worry about you breaking during interrogation.”

Her joke drew no reaction. No soft chuckle, the one he used when she amused him, but he hated to admit it.

“You know I hunted those who killed her.”

“I don’t blame you for that. I’d have done the same.”

“Perhaps. Irikah would not have, though. She was a gentle woman, one who believed with all her heart that redemption mattered more than revenge. It did not matter how bad a person was, she would have put herself before them and protected them because she felt all life to be precious. Even after what they did to her, after how she suffered-”

His gaze locked on the far wall, body going still as it always did when he slipped into memories. Sometimes they were good ones, ones of Kolyat as a boy, of beautiful places, and she’d sit happily and absorb the tiny details.

She knew this would not be such a time.

“ _Clothing stripped away, blood pooling, scales discolored from beatings. Other fluids, other bruises, proof of violations-_ ”

Jane shook his arm to pull him back. “Snap out of it, Thane, you don’t need to relive that.”

He pulled in a shaky breath. “I do, actually. I wasn’t there, I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t see it. It’s why I found the police files, looked at the pictures. I studied them night after night to ensure I’d never forget, that the images would never slip away. She endured torture, and I would at least endure the truth of it.”

She understood it, but it did little to ease the heartache. To carry something like that, something no amount of time would dull, it was a punishment that never lifted.

Thane didn’t make her respond, though. He kept talking. “I tracked them, not with the disinterest I had with most of my contracts. No, with those I cared little one way or the other. I was a weapon, nothing more. The only pleasure I had in the act was in the skill, the difficulty. Killing them meant nothing to me beyond that. These men, however, they were different. I tracked them all over the galaxy, killing them one at a time. I went up the levels, ending anyone associated with what they did to Irikah. Each death stained my soul, my burden to bear, and I accepted that.”

“You dream about killing them?”

Thane leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his hands laced together. “I dream of the last one only. I left him in so many pieces, the blood bathing the shuttle I killed him in. I had saved him for last, the one who had violated her, the one who had chosen to not just kill her but to hurt her, to try and taint her. I cut pieces from him, used medication and medi-gel so he would linger. Eventually, there was nothing left to linger. I didn’t kill him, though. When it became clear anything more would kill him, I left him in that shuttle. I went back to my ship, wanting him to feel how Irikah must have, that isolation and fear, knowing he would die and there was nothing that could be done to save him.” Thane let his head hang forward. “And then I blew his ship from the sky, the pieces going up like stars that burned to dust.”

“I would have done the same.”

“Yes. Most people would. What I dream about is standing on my ship, watching him burn, and I see Irikah. She stares at me, lips turned down, eyes disappointed. She’d never have wanted me to do such things, to be that monster. She saw more in me at one time, but in that moment? Staring at the ship, bathed in so much blood, I was the monster she’d feared. I dream about when I see her again, across the sea, when she sees the stains on my soul.” He shuddered, the tension slipping from him. “I don’t regret it. I would do it again in a heartbeat. They needed to die for what they’d done, and I’ll pay the consequences for it.”

Jane leaned in, her cheek pressing to his shoulder. He’d never admit to enjoying contact, but Thane never failed to relax when her skin stroked against his. “She’ll understand.”

Jane didn’t know if she believed in Thane’s afterlife. He spoke of it with such certainty, a certainty Jane had never felt in her own life. Would Irikah be waiting? When Jane died, would Thane be waiting? She didn’t know, but she knew Thane believed it. Perhaps that was the point.

“She won’t. I lost her when I made my choice. When I gave into my battle sleep, when I refused to wake, to remember what she’d taught me, I gave her up. She will never forgive me, and I do not deserve her forgiveness. When I die, she will be waiting for me, but she will see. She’ll see what I’ve done, the choices I made when I knew better, and she’ll ask me ‘how dare you.’ There is no coming back from the things I did, no forgiveness to be found, no redemption. She will ask ‘how dare you,’ and I will have to tell her, ‘how could I not?’”

Jane had no words to comfort him so only wrapped an arm around him to hold him close. He said nothing else, just leaning into the strength she offered, the promise that what he’d done would not drive her away, as well.

She wanted to say something, but perhaps there was nothing to be said. They all made choices, all paid the price for those choices, and some nights, the nights when the stars fell from the sky, the nights when they became the people they feared, there was no coming back.

All they could do was wait for the night to end and hope morning brought something new.

  
  



End file.
